In recent history, relatively inexpensive electronic devices have become available to ordinary property-owners that wish to monitor and control various aspects of their properties. A recent concept called the “Internet of Things” imagines home-related electronic devices that can be reached through the Internet, by which an environment can be controlled, e.g. lighting, temperature, digital video recorders, and many other “smart” devices. That kind of device ordinarily requires a connection to a network switch or hub, which connection can be wired or wireless.
Wireless connections to such smart devices are often desired, particularly in existing constructions, avoiding the laying of wires in existing walls and other structures. Technologies serving this purpose include low-wattage devices that communicate using the 2.4 GHz 802.11b/g “WiFi” protocol, and other more-recent and similar protocols such as Zigbee and Z-Wave. These protocols generally permit data rates of 100k bytes per second or more, allowing for devices that transmit and forward audio and video data in substantial real-time. However with high data rates come a vulnerability to interference from other devices operating on the same radio bands, and accordingly devices using these short-range protocols are generally limited to service within a single residence or building within a distance of less than 100 meters.
Recent technologies have been developed that permit operation to an intermediate range, communicating between points that are several miles or more away, for example using the LoRaWAN protocol. In this type of network, interference reduction is achieved by using frequencies in the UHF band and by including redundancies in communication, using for example multiple sampling, multiple frequency (spread-spectrum) techniques, and/or error-tolerant protocols. The use of the UHF band avoids interference from over-the-horizon sources, while at the same time avoiding some attenuation-of-signal from water-vapor, precipitation, buildings and other physical obstructions. These redundancies and protocols necessarily reduce the data throughput such that audio and video data cannot be streamed in good quality or in real-time.
An exemplary use of intermediate-range communication is in the recent deployment of wireless utility meters. Having a utility meter that can be read without a person traveling to and visually looking at it is a substantial cost savings for a utility. For such a use a meter communicates two items of information, which are an identifier for the meter and the meter reading itself; the utility takes a pair of such items and generates a bill for a utility subscriber. Because utility bills are ordinarily generated once per month, the amount of data from a single meter is usually on the order of a few tens of bytes in that period. Thus tens or even hundreds of thousands of meters can share a single intermediate-range channel, largely without interference from other devices.
The unsuitability of existing systems at intermediate ranges for large numbers of devices, for example in the Internet-Of-Things, is an unsolved problem. Turning now to FIG. 2, two proximal short-range networks are conceptually shown, such as those constructed from devices communicating through the 802.11g protocol, for example using the Zigbee specification. In the example two property owners each operate a hub “H” servicing multiple devices “D”, and as shown in the figure the circumference of effective communication 10 of each hub is proximal so as to create a zone of interference 11. Communication with the devices in that zone can be affected by communications with a non-subscribing hub, so as to introduce possible packet transmission collisions and interference. However, because these networks are short-range, the zone of interference 11 is relatively small, and the frequency of collisions and interference is likewise negligible. Proximal operators of such networks can experience impacts, but because of the short-range and the short transmission time of packets, these impacts are minor and usually acceptable.
In contrast and as shown in FIG. 3, three intermediate-range networks are located in similar proximity, each with a hub “H” and subscribing devices “D”. Because of the greater distance of communication provided, most devices “D” are located in zones of interference 11, and many devices may be located in regions 12 where several hubs are located within range. Thus where intermediate-range networks are to be used, most communication between hubs and devices and also inter-device communications should be expected to take place under conditions of interference, especially when located within a city or other populated area. Utility meter reading and other existing installations using the LoRa or LoRaWAN protocols manage this congestion by being the only network in the radio locality on a particular frequency, and by infrequent packet transmission on the order of once per week or month such that collisions between devices aren't likely. Utility meters are configured and installed by the utility provider, who can limit the number of end-devices within a locality to ensure network reliability. Because the provider is the only consumer of the applicable bandwidth resources, it can effectively control interference and manage congestion.
Unavailable on the consumer market today are hubs and end-devices that can operate at intermediate ranges. The short-range “WiFi” 802.11b/g network is now so popular that in most urban areas there is a router within communicative range no matter where a person finds himself; most households using the Internet now have one, purchased from a retailer. If the range of those routers and the devices they service were to be extended to an intermediate range, the result would be a collapse of system functionality from overwhelming interference. Thus, in order to bring intermediate-range devices to the ordinary consumer, further development is needed.
The existing intermediate-range techniques, however, aren't conducive for applications where interactivity is need. For a channel sharing thousands of meters, it isn't necessary to resolve collisions between devices in a matter of milliseconds, because data transmissions can be delayed without significant impacts. In another example, an irrigation controller will ordinarily keep a set of sprinklers on for minutes at a time, and a delay of multiple seconds or even minutes is tolerable. In contrast, a person activating a light switch, for example, will not accept activation of lights with perhaps more than a one-second delay. Where a person enters a code on a keypad to enter a building, he expects a controlled lock to deactivate in real-time. In general, the existing intermediate-range technologies are fault-susceptible and not reliable for such interactivity, particularly where multiple devices share a common communications frequency or channel.
Interactivity issues for battery-powered devices can be even worse. For these devices, it is generally undesirable to keep a receiver continuously powered, and worse to repeatedly being awakened from a sleep mode to process and discriminate packets destined for other devices. The LoRaWAN Class A and B protocols address this by having end-devices turn off their receivers for long periods of time, waking up periodically to interact with a network gateway. Such a device may remain asleep for seconds, minutes or even hours, and thus cannot be made responsive to incoming queries. Furthermore, these protocols are susceptible to collisions from co-transmitting devices, which may require backing off interactions with a hub, and no time of reception can be guaranteed. Thus absent from the field of the invention is a system that can provide adequate and reliable service for groups of sensed and controlled remote devices at intermediate ranges.